Bass Reeves
Bass Reeves is a BrainPOP Social Studies video launched on February 17, 2016. Summary The movie starts out as Moby is in a western movie, but it is revealed to be a daydream, as Tim tells Moby that he's supposed to be helping him move objects. Tim confronts Moby, informing him that, according to Big Dan, he is "lazier than a one eyed rattlesnake with cactus fever." Moby asked Tim what that ment. Since Tim doesn't know what that means, and he thought that Moby knew (which he doesn't), they skip the subject and read a letter about Bass Reeves. After discussing about Bass Reeves, Tim looks beside him, but Moby isn't there. As he looks into the sunset, he sees Moby, masked and mounted on a horse, and riding away. Tim asks himself, "Who was that masked robot?" Appearances *Tim *Moby Trivia *In the episode, Tim wears the same outfit worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part III. *At some point in the video, a movie poster is shown for "Chisum Trail", starring Chip Preston, Abigail Roberts-Preston, and Ricky Mooney, and shot in Ultracolor. **The title may be a parody on Chisum, a 1970 Western movie starring John Wayne. **The cast members Chip Preston and Ricky Mooney are parodies on Robert Preston and Mickey Rooney, who appeared together in My Outlaw Brother, a 1951 Western movie. **If this is the movie they're intending to parody, then Abigail Roberts-Preston is based off of Wanda Hendrix. *Near the end of the movie, merchandise is shown of Western movies. **A photograph of Skip Gentile, autographed "To Bill - Keep on Ridin'!" - Skip Gentile. **A movie poster for "The Montana Dude" starring "America's No. 1 Cowboy" Gene Rogers. **A movie poster for "The Muchachos" staring John LeBlanc. **A photograph of Lance Smith holding a revolver, autographed "Best, Lance Smith". **Gene Rogers is a parody of both Gene Autrey and Will Rogers. **John LeBlanc is a possible parody of John Wayne. Transcript * Bass Reeves/Transcript FYI Famous Faces One of the most celebrated characters to emerge from the colorful history of the American West was Wyatt Earp. Though he's known today as a heroic lawman, the truth about Earp's life is much less clear-cut. As a young man, Earp wandered through Kansas and Indian Territory, picking up work where he could. During this time, he had several run-ins with the law, including some arrests. But the line between breaking laws and enforcing them was pretty thin in the Old West. Earp joined the Wichita police force after helping an officer track down some wagon thieves. He would eventually head to Dodge City, where he became deputy town marshal. It was then that Earp met Doc Holliday, a notorious troublemaker known throughout the West. Feeling the pull of the frontier, Earp moved again in 1879. The silver rush drew him to Tombstone, Arizona where most of his family had settled. He began working alongside his brothers Virgil and Morgan as a town marshal. In 1881, while pursuing a group of cowboys who had robbed a stagecoach, Earp struck a deal with a local rancher who had ties to the criminals. Unfortunately, as was common in the Old West, promises were broken and tempers flared. The feud escalated quickly and came to a head on October 26, 1881: the deadly gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Several cowboys were illegally carrying weapons within Tombstone town limits. They were also making threats against the Earp brothers. The Earps and Doc Holliday confronted the cowboys at the O.K. Corral, intending to disarm them. A chaotic gunfight broke out, during which three cowboys were killed. Holliday and the Earps were arrested for murder, but cleared of all charges at the trial. The months following were filled with threats from other cowboys and plots of violent revenge. Morgan was ambushed and killed by unknown attackers, and Virgil was severely wounded. Vowing revenge, Wyatt Earp applied to be a deputy U.S. marshal. His request was granted, and he formed a posse to track down the cowboys responsible for the attacks on his brothers. Over the next months, Earp's posse killed four cowboys. Arrest warrants were issued for Earp and Holliday, but they left Arizona to avoid charges. Earp eventually moved to California, where kept busy doing a variety of odd jobs. He also published a memoir, which received terrible reviews. He died in Los Angeles in 1929. The first major biography about Earp's life was 1931's Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, ''by Stuart N. Lake. Unlike Earp's own memoirs, this book became a bestseller. It cast Earp as a folk hero and served as a source of inspiration to Americans struggling through the Great Depression. Lake later admitted that he had made up many of Earp’s quotations in the biography. Today, the book is seen as largely fictional, but that hasn't stopped Hollywood. Since the 1950s, each generation of moviegoers seems to get its own Wyatt Earp movie. '''Real Life' Lighthorse, the elite native police force of Indian Territory, was essential to the fight against outlaws in the Wild West. As early as 1808, the Cherokee Nation passed an act appointing "regulators" to combat horse-stealing and robbery. They were also tasked with caring for orphaned and widowed members of the tribe. In 1844, after the forced relocation to Indian Territory, the Cherokee National Council passed a bill authorizing a Lighthorse company. It was to be composed of a captain, lieutenant, and twenty-four horsemen. The Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes soon followed suit and implemented Lighthorse companies of their own. In order to be selected, you had to be incredibly fit, an expert rider and a skilled marksman. Lighthorsemen were widely respected for their dedication, intensity, and focus. A typical tour of duty lasted four years. Lighthorse officers didn't have any authority over anyone who wasn’t American Indian. But on many occasions, they detained non-Indian law-breakers and turned them over to deputy U.S. marshals. Bass Reeves often sought the help of Lighthorsemen on his trips through Indian Territory. In 1880, The United States Indian Police (USIP) was created to patrol the entire Indian Territory. USIP recruited many of their officers from existing Lighthorse companies. Unlike Lighthorsemen, who were under the direction of their individual tribe, USIP had jurisdiction throughout all Five Tribe nations. U.S. marshals often deputized USIP officers and Lighthorsemen to serve in posses pursuing non-Indian outlaws. Today, many tribes continue to use the Lighthorse name in their local police force. Arts And Entertainment Bass Reeves may have been the inspiration for The Lone Ranger, but writer Frank Striker brought the character to life. The Lone Ranger began as a radio program before it blossomed into a business that included books, TV shows, and movies. Together with radio and TV producer George W. Trendle, Striker came up with a set of guidelines to describe exactly who the Lone Ranger is and how he lives. These rules would keep the character consistent across different media, from comic books to motion pictures. * The Lone Ranger must always dress the part. He can never been seen without his mask, or a disguise. * The Lone Ranger might help send a posse of crooks to the clink, but he himself must never spend a second behind bars. In order to protect his identity, he cannot be apprehended by any lawman. * His English teacher would be proud: The Lone Ranger never uses slang or bad grammar. * The Lone Ranger uses his gun only to disarm a foe, never to kill. * Even The Lone Ranger can't overcome unrealistic odds. That means no going over a waterfall to escape a hail of bullets, and emerging victorious or unscathed. * Bad guys are usually given a single nickname. * After a long day of fighting crime, the only thing to quench the thirst of The Lone Ranger is a nice cold… soda. No smoking or alcohol for this masked hero. * The Lone Ranger uses silver bullets to remind himself that life, like his ammo, is precious. Quotables Frontier newspapers, though often sensational, paint pictures of what life was like in the Old West. Check out these excerpts covering the activities of U.S. Marshal, Bass Reeves. "Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves lacks lots of being dead as was reported recently from Muskogee to the Dallas News. He turned up Saturday from west with two wagons of prisoners going to Ft. Smith. He had twelve prisoners in all." – Eufaula Indian Journal, 1891. "One of the most remarkable examples of devotion to duty was furnished in Muskogee the other day, when United States Marshal Bass Reeves, while lying in bed dangerously sick with pneumonia, arrested a man and had him taken to jail." – The Wichita Daily Eagle, 1906. "Attempted Assassination – Bass Reeves Shot at Near Wybark…Reeves had been over in the vicinity of Wybark serving papers and looking for criminals…Reeves declines to say whom he thinks it was, but it is thought that he has a pretty good idea and will eventually get his man."The Daily Ardmoreite, – 1906. "Reeves was never known to show the slightest excitement under any circumstance. He does not know what fear is. Place a warrant for arrest in his hands and no circumstance can cause him to deviate." – Oklahoma City Weekly Times-Journal, 1907. "For thirty-two years… Bass Reeves was a deputy. During that time he was sent to arrest many of the most notorious characters that in those days infested this part of the Indian country, and because he was gifted with a mind that knew not how to quail, and an intensity of purpose that led him to follow criminals day and night, dogging the fugitive's trail—because of this, he rarely failed to land his man in the Muskogee federal jail." – The Muldrow Press, 1910. FYI Comic There is none. Quiz * Bass Reeves/Quiz Primary source 1906 article from The Sun newspaper, Chanute, Kanasas. Headline: Pass With Statehood Sub-headline: DEPUTY SHERIFFS TAKE PLACE OF TAMERS AND BAD MEN Sub-headline: Government Vigilantes in Old Days Made Big Money and Feared Nothing. MUSKOGEE, I. T., September 26. Change from a Federal state Government and the election of a sheriff in each country, will mark the final passage of the Deputy United States Marshals, and remove a class of men who have been important in the development of a lawless wilderness into a country of law and order. There is not in all the United States a place where a Deputy Marshal is such an important figure as in Indian Territory. They have ridden the plains and raided the mountain fortresses of the century, and their trial in many instances has been a bloody one. But they have conquered the country, and a criminal is as certain to meet justice in Indian Territory today as any place in the country. Deputy Marshals begun to ride Indian territory when the nearest Federal courts were at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Paris Texas. At that time Indian territory extended over all of what is now Indian territory and Oklahoma. It meant a ten days' ride for a deputy to get out on the west side and make an arrest or serve a paper, a dangerous ride at that. Those were the days when the Buck gang, the Jennings gang, Cherokee Bill, the Daltons, Ned Christie, Texas Jack and other were flourishing. When a deputy and his posseman rode out of Fort Smith into the territory, neither he nor his friends knew whether her would ever ride back again. Some of them did not. And yet there were deputies who followed this hazardous business in the early days who are still deputy marshals, and good ones, and will continue in their offices until the Government removes them to replace a Federal court regime with a State government. In the early days nearly all of the deputy marshals received their pay in fees. If they had a large number of arrests to their credit and had traveled far, they got a correspondingly large pay check at the end of month. And there was always plenty for them to do. One of the first cases tried when the first court was on wherein the defendant resided in the western part of the territory. When Deputy Marshal Bud Kell made his return for securing service on him the voucher showed that he had to go 70 miles after him. Had he gone to Fort Smith, as had been the practice previous to that time, the distance would have been seventy miles further. It was in the early days that Paden Tolbert, Henry Thompson, Bud Ledbetter, Bass Reeves and other deputies made their reputations for themselves. It might also be added that this was a period of years when outlaws were biting the dust in the struggle that was going on to bring order out of the wilderness and establish law in the bad man's land. There were also many deputies whose lives paid the price of their intrepid spirit in the service of the government. It might also be added that the Government has never in any way rewarded Deputy Marshals for their hazardous service except with meager salaries. In the early days a Deputy Marshal drew per diem and 10 cents per mile mileage for bringing in prisoners. He was also allowed a liberal amount to feed his prisoners. The usual procedure was to take out one or two possemen and as fast as a prisoner could be arrested he was handcuffed and turned over to a posseman in camp, and remained there until the deputies had worked that section, bunching the prisoners as fast as they were arrested. They were brought in on horseback. If they were unruly they were fastened to the horses. Bass Reeves, a negro deputy, now working under Marshal Bennett at Muskogee, commenced working as a deputy out of Paris, Texas, later went to Fort Smith and came to Indian territory when the court was established here in 1889. He has never been out of the service. He now makes arrests of colored people only. One time Bass arrested a whole band of Choctaw Indians and took them to Fort Smith. His per diem and mileage for this one trip amounted to nearly two thousand dollars. "Pass with Statehood, Deputy Sheriffs Take Place of Tamers of Bad Men. Government Vigilantes in Old Days Made Big Money and Feared Nothing." The Sun. 26 Sept. 1906. Kansas Historical Society. Newslea https://newsela.com/read/smi-black-cowboys/id/27224/[[Category:BrainPOP Episodes]] Category:Social Studies Category:African-American History Category:Famous Historical Figures Category:U.S. History Category:2016 episodes Category:Episodes in February Category:February 2016 Episodes